Standing Elbow Curls for your Shoulder, Elbow or Wrist Pain
How many tennis players do you know who have or have had tennis elbow or painful wrists? Or serious shoulder issues? Maybe you are one of them? Sometimes we blame the new string we’ve just put in our rackets or the string tension, or the racket. Our technique maybe could use some improvement? It could be a lot of things. Very seldom we blame imbalances in our bodies that we’ve created by playing our sport or just plainly living life.
Being one side dominant, we often use our dominant arm and leg for most of the activities that we do. As mentioned in previous articles about the hips, often when the hips are not balanced, the other joints need to compensate, and we encounter problems with the knees, ankles or shoulders.
And if the shoulders are not properly aligned or the muscles are unevenly strong, then each motion that starts in the shoulder joint is not as accurate as it should be, and our elbow or wrist takes a lot of beating. By overusing the improperly aligned shoulder joint, we might develop tennis elbow, wrist pain or serious shoulder issues.
Consequently, if we want to address a tennis elbow, we should look at the shoulders and hips. (You can refresh your memory about taking care of your hips with cats and dogs, frog, groin stretch, pigeon, crocodile, windmill… sounds like a zoo? :-) )
This simple exercise doesn’t take much time and no equipment is needed, so you can do it pretty often. Even if you don’t have any elbow, wrist or shoulder problems, you still will benefit from doing it as a prevention of future problems by keeping good balance in your body.
Standing Elbow Curls
This exercise strengthens, activates, and balances the shoulder and upper back muscles that are involved with the shoulders’ ball-and-socket proper function
- Stand by the wall, with feet parallel and hip apart; ankles, knees, hips and shoulders aligned over each other.
- Keep your heels, butt, upper back and head touching the wall.
- Curl your fingers into your palm, and point the thumbs in 90 degrees.
- Put your knuckles on your temples with thumbs pointing straight down, parallel with your cheeks, and push your elbows back touching the wall.
- From this starting position, slowly bring your elbows forward until they touch in front of your chest, while keeping your knuckles on your temples (Important note - they will want to move around, so check the proper position after each repetition!)
- Keep your head touching the wall all the time; don’t let it move forward and back.
- Do 30-50 repetitions. It can be difficult in the beginning, but will get easier as your shoulder joints get more functional.
- Don’t hurry, take your time, breathe deeply and focus on quality and correct form of each repetition. Remember, you are working on rebalancing your shoulder and teaching it the proper function. Don’t cheat on your form, enjoy the process.
Learn how to observe your body - the changes that it goes through as you are doing all these new exercises and how it responds, because you personally are the best healer of your own body. Just listen to it and get in sync with it. Playing tennis on the hard courts of Los Angeles is tough on your body, so help it as much as you can.
If you liked reading this article, feel free to subscribe with the button above, so you wouldn't miss any future great articles on fitness and injury prevention. Until then, read also tips how to
- Rejuvenate your body in the morning or any time with Sun Salutations.
- Stretch your hips with the Pigeon, Frog, Crocodile Twist and groin stretch.
- Do the myo-fascial release for your feet, booty, and lower legs.
- Strengthen your booty with lunges, jump squats, and windmills.
- Work on your agility, coordination and balance with some fun footwork drills.
- And because the weather and conditions in Los Angeles are very hot, don’t forget to drink a lot of water, because it will increase your performance and well-being.
- Learn how to sleep well to feel good and increase your performance.
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